Who invented space suit

NASA plans to send people to places that humans have never gone before, like an asteroid and, one day, Mars. That means astronauts will need new spacesuits. So NASA is working on making new ones. Like the Apollo spacesuits, the new suits will let the astronauts work safely on rocky ground.

The new suits will make it easier for astronauts to move. They will better protect astronauts from dust. Dust can be rough, like sandpaper. And the new suits will have parts that can be swapped out. Why are the new spacesuits important? They will make it easier and safer for astronauts to live and work in space.

Skip to main content. Text Size. The History of Spacesuits. September 16, The space suit has a number of mobility joints and bearings that enable it to mirror human motion. This effect is called programming and is most observable in the arms and shoulders. Rather than just reaching straight forward and forcing the suit to follow your motion, you can rotate your shoulder and then arm to get to the point you were reaching for with less energy.

It sounds complicated, but it becomes second nature after a few minutes in the suit. The suit contacts your body at various locations as you move. The weight of the suit and the torque it takes to move the joints affect these contact points. So, when you move one part of the suit in gravity, the weight redistributes and the suit pushes on you in various locations. For example, when you bend forward at the waist and reach for something on a table you will feel stronger contact on the backs of your knees and at the back of the shoulders as the suit redistributes its weight onto your body.

A close example is what it feels like to move around while wearing a large full backpack, but the forces push on your body in different places. Again, you get used to it quickly and it becomes second nature. The trick is to learn how it works and not fight it because you will become fatigued quickly. One of the hardest things to get used to in a space suit is the small helmet.

Therefore, when you walk, your torso shifts inside the torso of the suit and the helmet bumps your head. It may sound difficult but wearing the suit is really quite comfortable and gives you a high level of mobility given that it is an articulated spacecraft that has to withstand the environments of space, have multiple structural redundancies, and last for many EVAs. Imagine trying to bend a football in half; space suit joints do this with virtually no resistance.

The guiding principle in pressure suit joint design is to make the joint have a constant volume throughout its motion, so you are not doing work by compressing the inflation gas. Single-axis joints such as the elbow or knee are more straightforward and easier to create than omnidirectional joints such as the shoulder and hip.

There are several basic technologies that are used, which allow the material to gather, fold, and slide on itself so its axial length can change. It takes clever design and patterning to create mobility joints that can have low torque and a high range of motion to match human mobility. But that is only the first part of the challenge. The bar is raised significantly in trying to make that joint meet all the requirements of a space suit concurrently without compromise in performance.

Miss just one of the requirements—in poor materials selection, inadequate design, or lack of proper analysis and test—and a multi-million dollar mission could be compromised or worse, a life could be lost.

Future space suit designs will be defined by the missions they support, economics, and the technologies available. The more revolutionary paths of space suit development will come with new missions to explore our Solar System over the next several decades, including going to the Moon, Mars, the surface of an asteroid, perhaps one day to Europa. Commercial activities in low Earth orbit are also developing, such as tourism, space hotels, and satellite repair, to name a few.

In the distant future, as technology advances are made that facilitate efficient energy production and compact life support systems, we could eventually see colonization of the Moon or Mars. Achieving these goals will require space suits able to support activities ranging from tourism to heavy construction, to the more dexterous operations associated with maintenance and repair of a wide range of equipment on these missions. A prototype inflatable robotic hand is designed to assist astronauts in outer space, who could remote-control its actions from inside the safety of a spacecraft.

The AIR hand is made from soft materials, giving it a high level of dexterity as well as a strong grip, but it also has great strength and resiliency, so it can stand up to abusive conditions that might be damaging for an astronaut.

In construction or other heavy work, strength augmentation will be of benefit. Future space suits might incorporate powered exoskeletons for superhuman strength or simply fatigue reduction. Some pioneering work was conducted in this area in the s for space suit gloves, where the feasibility of integrating robotics and softgoods space suit components was demonstrated.

Other actuation technologies that use flexible materials in the place of rigid robotic elements are also under study. These include biomimetically inspired inflatable cells to morph the shape of the suit, or externally applied electroactive polymers that constrict like muscles when electrified.

Considerable advancements are being made in robotics, prosthetics, and soft robots that will help shape a path to realizing space suits with powered exoskeletons that move the suit for the wearer and enhance strength. However, these advances will be difficult to realize until the problem of creating small, portable power units is solved and astronauts will not have to carry tens of pounds of batteries with them to make the suit function.

Three major layers of textiles and flexible membranes, with a total thickness of less than one-tenth of an inch, protect the astronaut from space. Another path of study being considered in future suits is eliminating the pressurized envelope around the body and replacing it with a mechanical counter-pressure layer that would apply the correct pressure over the skin to keep body fluids from evolving into gas. Research began in this area in the s, but such suits were found to be limited in comfort and mobility.

Instant access to information regarding the local environment, the mission, and human physiology will be critical to operational efficiency and safety in future missions as we travel farther from Earth in greater numbers. Smart structures and wearable electronics technologies have already been demonstrated in space suits and these technologies are advancing every day in medical and consumer products. Soon space suits will have distributed wireless sensors that monitor the environment, the suit itself, and the wearer while at the same time processing the data with distributed on-suit computation, and adapting as necessary or alerting the wearer through voice or visual displays.

Performance enhancements will only be part of the equation for creating better space suits. Logistical enhancements that reduce mission cost by requiring fewer and longer-lived components will be paramount, and a more likely near-term development target as budget pressures increase. Launching and operating spacecraft is expensive, and every measure will need to be taken to address the major mission cost factors, including those centered on space suits. Costs are difficult to accurately identify, but estimates of the cost to launch 1 kilogram into low Earth orbit is on the order of tens of thousands of dollars, and crew time there is on the order of thousands of dollars per minute.

These numbers will escalate significantly for planetary or deep space missions. Therefore, future space suits need minimal mass and require as low logistical support as practical including minimization of maintenance, fitting a broad population with interchangeable components, and having the longest useful life possible. The experimental I-suit began development around and was designed to perform better on planetary surfaces.

Improved mobility would make it easier to walk in environments with gravity and to use robotic rovers. Advances are already being made in materials to address logistical needs of long-term space flight by eliminating the time it takes the crew to clean suits between uses or replace worn components.

Among the more advanced are anti-microbial and self-healing materials. Anti-microbial agents are added to the materials used in the space suit that are in contact with the occupant inside the bladder layer to kill bacteria or viruses that are expelled during respiration or sweating. These agents reduce odor, improve hygiene, and enhance medical safety, in addition to reducing the logistics burden on the mission.

These materials work well but require support from other mechanisms for full efficacy in creation of a fully self-cleaning suit. Concepts are being developed for internal illumination of the suit with ultraviolet light, or inflation with vaporized hydrogen peroxide, in order to sterilize it. These materials work in seconds without the aid of power or any action by the crew. So, when an astronaut exploring Mars in puts on her suit for the th time to repair the power generation system outside, it will be as strong and smell as fresh as when it left the factory, and it will passively seal the hole in the suit created when the robotic rover accidentally runs into her.

When an astronaut exploring Mars in puts on her suit for the th time, it will be as strong and smell as fresh as when it left the factory, and it will passively seal the hold the suit created when the robot rover accidentally runs into her. In addition to the development work being conducted at the companies that have been building space suits for decades, numerous programs are underway at small companies and universities to advance technologies used in space suits or in new designs altogether.

Small technology companies such as Nanosonic, Aspen Aerogels, NEI Corporation, and others are developing new materials based on nanotechnology and advanced processing techniques to advance the performance of various layers or components of space suits.

These include technologies such as structural health monitoring systems, improved insulation, and self-healing materials. Several universities, including the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Maryland, the University of Delaware, and others have been developing advanced space suit concepts for several years.

The university efforts include mechanical counter-pressure suits, powered exoskeletons, and advanced composite structures. Many of the studies are small, but infusion of these concepts and technologies into the NASA program usually works best when small businesses and universities team with the suit manufacturing companies. Good things happen when you combine experience with ideas. Aesthetics are also becoming increasingly important in space suit design.

With the introduction of commercial activities comes a need for companies to brand their offerings. A crowd-sourcing event was held where NASA invited the public to select the design for the outer layer.

Future versions of space suits will most certainly benefit from technology advancements in other industries. However, the converse is true as well, and just as space suit technology spin-offs have been used in numerous ways, such as treating burn victims or for racecar driver thermal regulation, technology from the next generation of space suits will be used to benefit society in some way.

It is difficult to tell exactly what form space suits of the future will take but one thing is sure: They will be inspiring and iconic. Skip to main content. Login Register. Page DOI: Photograph courtesy of NASA. Facebook Twitter. Images courtesy of ILC Dover. Image courtesy of ILC Dover.

Bibliography Cadogan, D. Intelligent flexible materials for deployable space structures InFlex. Ferl, J. Pantaleano, D.

But ILC Dover continue to use seamstresses to make their suits though one man has now joined the team. So, again, life-critical. If an astronaut goes out and does a spacewalk and their space suit fails, their life is in our hands. Sewing continues to thrive within other areas of the space industry too. The suits needed to be tough enough to withstand long missions but flexible enough to allow the astronauts to move with as much freedom as possible Credit: Nasa.

Mayer, a manufacturing and integration specialist for the aerospace company RUAG in Austria, began her career at fashion school.

If the material is too thick, we have to sew by hand. They are all seamstresses to the stars. Join one million Future fans by liking us on Facebook , or follow us on Twitter or Instagram. If you liked this story, sign up for the weekly bbc. Space Station Space. The women who sewed the suits for the space race. Share using Email. By Sue Nelson 20th December We used to make them all day long and knew they were gonna be trashed.

But we knew a man's life was going to depend on it.